My Real Life

1. Who wakes up in the morning with the kids, you or hubby?

I do.

I seem to be the default person for the kids to come to when they need something in the morning, and even if I wasn’t, I hear everything.

The second someone is up, I’m up.

Real Man will try to let me sleep, every now and then, on the weekend, but the problem is, I’ve already woken up and heard the monkeys and I can’t fall back to sleep.

So, it’s me.

2. Do you watch the World Series even if your team isn’t in it?

Don’t have a team.

Hate baseball.

No World Series for me.

3. What is the best compliment you have received?

That my  children were kind.

It’s really all I want for them…to be kind people.

So, whenever someone tells me that they have been kind to others, it makes me beam inside.

4. Do/did you dress up to take your kids trick or treating?

No.

I usually take Halloween as a personal day so I can go to all of my kids Halloween parades, and since I’m not at school, I don’t dress up.

To dress up to stand in the street while my kids go up to doors and ring doorbells seems silly to me, so, no, I don’t.

Before kids, however, I used to dress up for school every year.

5. Do you have a favorite bible verse? What is it and why?

I’m not much of a biblical scholar.

I’ve already shared that one bible verse that I had memorized when I was a little girl (Luke something), but as for a favorite?

Probably not.

I am a fan of the Christmas story, and I think it’s because my Dad used to do the Christmas story in candles at church.

The lights would be dim and he’d light a candle each time he mentioned a new person in the story, and then extinguish the candle as each person left the manger, and eventually, it was just the Christ candle and it was really beautiful.

Whether or not you believed it, it was beautiful.

So, I guess that story.

Please don’t think I’m shirking my blogging duties, but I feel like I would be completely remiss if I didn’t send you to this website to read this list of 60 Tiny Love Stories.

Some made me cry.

All of them made me smile.

I find it completely fitting that I share these love stories with you today.

Real Man’s birthday.

The star of my very own love story.

Enjoy.

1. I’m a frugal girl, but I am also all about anything that might make my life a little easier.

So, when I found sliced apples, pre-packaged, I was thrilled.

My monkeys love apples, but rarely will finish the whole thing.

Pre-packaged and sliced, they go nicely in their lunchboxes and we’re good.

I posted awhile ago about having found chopped onions and chopped peppers and how happy I was.

It may sound lazy to you, but time is at a premium over here, so I buy it, freeze it and pop it out when I want to make dinner.

Anyway, one of our favorite meals is chicken primavera, which I’ve previously said that Baby calls “chicken bra.”

It’s cubed chicken, chicken broth, broccoli, brown rice and seasoned to taste.

However, I despise making this meal because the cubing of the chicken is so labor-intensive and takes so freaking long.

Chicken cubing – 15 to 20 minutes

The rest of the prep – 3 minutes

Cook time – 15 minutes

As long to prep as it is to cook?

No thanks.

And then, I found it.

Perdue Short Cuts.

Pre. Cut. Chicken.

And, again, I realize you all probably have known about this stuff for years.

I haven’t.

Now I have.

And there’s no turning back.

—

2.  In thinking about my upcoming hair chop, I’ve been looking at different styles.

However, I wasn’t really sure of how the cuts would look on me.

Then, it dawned on me.

Why not check out Reese Witherspoon’s short do’s?

She’s the celebrity that people tell me I look like, so, it’s gotta be a good place to start.

Currently, this one is in the lead:

I kid…I kid.

This is the one that is actually in the lead:

It’ll be a little shorter, but I’m a wash and go girl and this looks fairly go-able.

Of course, if someone slips with the scissors, I might wind up as Michelle Williams:

—

3.  I came across this list, the other day, while browsing the news.

It’s that time of year, and I am definitely looking for some scary.

So, I was pleased and excited to see a list about the scariest movies you haven’t seen.

Except I had already seen six of them.

Still, worth a look at the other two!

Saturday was beautiful.

Absolutely beautiful.

And in between the appreciation of just how lovely Saturday was, Monkey Girl and I hit our church Bazaar and scored 23 books for $5.25, a bracelet for $2, and the obligatory apple pie.

To say Monkey Girl likes pie is like saying Hugh Hefner likes girls.

She’s a fan.

Our afternoon was spent at Monkey in the Middle’s last football game of the season, which they won, beautifully.

MITM threw a gorgeous touchdown pass, and he also caught a pass from his cousin and ran for a touchdown.

It was a good game for him.

After the game, we all went our separate ways.

Real Man and MITM headed to the team party and Monkey Girl left with Grandpa to go work at a church seniors dinner.

So, it was just me and my two littlest guys.

I told Baby we could head wherever he wanted to head for dinner.

His gourmet pick?

McDonald’s.

We haven’t been there in quite sometime, so off to McDonald’s we headed.

He chatted and chatted and chatted the entire car ride, the entire meal, the entire walk to Walmart to pick up Madagascar 3 from the Redbox kiosk, and all the way home.

He was absolutely delightful.

He talked about what would happen if a tornado struck McDonald’s while we sat there and his plan to save Tiny was priceless.

He talked about which is his favorite local park and then ranked about ten of them, explaining that a park has to have at least two slides in order to even be considered for his top 10.

A tire swing puts a park immediately in contention for Spot #1.

He talked about how black is his new favorite color (it’s been orange for the past four years…black is new) and the reason that he loves black is because he feels like it’s awesome that it’s a combination of everything.

He talked about how, when Tiny grows up, he’s going to teach him how to tie his shoes, ride a bike, make his bed, and do the dishes.

When I reminded him that he doesn’t actually do any of that stuff, he said with a straight face, “Just because I don’t do it doesn’t mean I don’t know how to.”

Touché, little man.  Touché.

When we got home, we were going to snuggle on the couch and watch Madagascar 3, but he decided to wait until MITM came home from his party, and instead, we played with Tiny and chatted some more.

He’s a great date.

I love that kid, and it breaks my heart, sometimes, that he is so quiet in public, because I feel like the rest of the world is totally missing out on his awesomeness, however, he has a Dad who is pretty quiet in public, as well, and is the most awesome person I know, so I know where he got it.

He’s a great kid.

I was looking back through old photos on my phone, and I figured I’d end the post with one of my favorites.

Just kind of embodies what a loving little soul he is.

During the week, I leave the house so early, I don’t get to see the beauty of morning sneaking across my world.

By the time the sun is really up, I’m ensconced in my classroom, saying the Pledge of Allegiance with my class.

So, on the weekends, I try to make sure to notice what it is I’ve missed during the week.

And, wow…is my backyard gorgeous in the morning.

Thursday night, Real Man and I had been hanging out and chatting before he had to leave for hockey, around 10 pm.

Eventually, he got ready to go and headed downstairs.

And came right back up.

“You have to come see this,” he said.

So, I got out of bed and followed him downstairs into the room we call either “the library,” “the reading room,” “the music room,” or “mom’s room.”

And there, curled up on the leather couch was Baby Monkey, sound asleep.

Baby Monkey has a history of sleep-walking, and we’ve always assumed it was something related to the nystagmus (eye shaking episodes) he has.

However, he can usually be found in the bathroom or in our room, and he has NEVER traveled the stairs.

So, to find him downstairs was more than a little disconcerting.

Real Man picked him up to take him back to bed (all the research we’ve done says it IS okay to wake a sleepwalker) and he woke up wild-eyed and confused.  We told him to close his eyes and go back to sleep and when we got him back to his bed, he was sound asleep, once again.

I, of course, didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

I started Googling sleepwalking and found some amazing things.

Did you know there are cases of people cooking a full meal while sleepwalking?

Of getting in their cars and driving places while sleepwalking?

Crazy!

Scary!

My hope is that he outgrows this and that just because it’s progressed to stair walking doesn’t mean that next time it will progress to him leaving the house.

I’m certainly not going to lock him in his room, but maybe we’ll actually have to invest in baby gates for the first time.

Because, all I can think about is Baby’s little body, sprawled on the slate, stone floor of the foyer at the bottom of the stairs.

Because, I’m a world champion worrier.

So, I’ll be sleeping a little lighter (if that’s even possible) and eventually I’ll remember that it’s been months since he did this before, and it will likely be months before he’ll do it again, and all the research that I’ve done says that kids usually outgrow it.

Eventually.

I love a good election season.

I really do.

I love to debate issues and politics and can be a bit of a political news junkie.

However, there is nothing I love more than the humor in an election season.

I’m a pretty far to the left leaning liberal, but I am an equal opportunity political humor enthusiast.

Saturday Night Live during an election year makes me laugh until I start wheezing.

The Saturday after the vice-presidential debate was a pretty good one.

Here are some clips from that show.

And if you go back four years, there was nothing quite as entertaining as Tina Fey with her Palin impression.

Yet, it’s not just video humor.

Facebook is covered with photos with captions that make me smile.

My current favorite is this one:

Makes me laugh out loud every single time I see it.

Every. Single. Time.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I am serious about what is going on in this country and I take this election very seriously, as well.

I think there is more at stake, this year, than has ever been at stake before, with a few historic exceptions.

But, when there is so much at stake and when the political tone is so heavy, I think we need to be able to laugh.

Laugh at ourselves, laugh at the other guy, laugh at the mess we’ve all (both parties) gotten ourselves into.

It doesn’t mean that we take it all lightly.

It just makes it more bearable to make it through these tough times.

So, debate and discuss and rant and rave as is your right to do.

Just don’t forget to laugh.